It’s true no matter where you live. From Florida to Alaska and Montana to Maine, your Katrina may be an earthquake, a tornado, a terrorist attack, a flood, a wildfire or one of many other catastrophes, both natural and man-made. If we note how government behaves in the disasters we’re being told to prepare for, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 revealed a horror story as big as the storm itself. NRA has had news crews on the ground in New Orleans since the hurricane hit, interviewing National Rifle Association members, gun owners, investigators and law enforcement officers.
The ugly truth about the default posture of government in disaster is this. When chaos reigns, tyranny rules! In the aftermath of Katrina, and for the first time in American history, New Orleans and other government officials ordered law enforcement officers to go door to door to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens at gunpoint. When there were no police or 911 or lights or phones, when armed gangs roamed the streets and gunshots rang out in the moonless sky, when thousands of lawful Americans were reduced to the final and purest form of self-reliance in the face of terrifying anarchy, their very means of self-reliance was taken away.
Katrina became the proving ground for what American gun owners have always predicted. The day came when government bureaucrats threw the Bill of Rights out the window and declared freedom to be whatever they say it is. A mayor and a police chief revoked the civil rights of law-abiding citizens. The Second Amendment was only as good as they said it was. And they had plenty of men in helmets and body armor with M-16s to prove it. No one really knows how many hundreds or thousands of guns were confiscated. In fact, it took six months and an NRA lawsuit in federal court before the city admitted they took any guns at all. Many are lost. Few are likely to make it back to their rightful owners. In the overwhelming wake of Katrina, local bureaucrats, with no conceivable authority to do so, revoked the Second Amendment. They suffered no consequences. And American media remained silently complicit.
Who, if not NRA and the Institute for Legislative Action, will rise to tell this terrible story and prevent its future occurrence?
NRA immediately launched a twopart initiative. The NRA asked every mayor and police chief in America to sign a pledge that they will never forcibly disarm the law-abiding citizens of their town or city. Mayors and police chiefs have already sworn to support the U.S. Constitution in their oaths of office. So signing this pledge should be just as effortless. And their constituents will find out whose side their local leaders are on. If they refuse to make the pledge, they should explain under exactly what circumstances their citizens should agree to be forcibly disarmed.
The NRA will support the introduction of state and federal legislation that makes it a crime to forcibly disarm law-abiding citizens. Violation should result in arrest and hard prison time. This legislation protects not only lawful gun owners, but also rank-and-file police and military officers who should not be ordered to do what they know is wrong. They don’t want "leaders" to use them as instruments of tyranny to disarm their fellow townsmen. In the minds of those who framed our Constitution, the right to armed selfprotection in times of pandemonium was so obvious and innate that it didn’t warrant mention. That’s why the Second Amendment is brief in language but broad in scope, serving as umbrella protection for lawful use of arms in almost any circumstance. We can’t know from whence the next calamity will come, only that it will come. And only the NRA stands sentry for gun rights when it arrives. If we do not heed the lesson of Katrina - that survival in disaster is ultimately the responsibility of the individual - the next tragedy will certainly include further devastation of American freedoms.
Deze tribune van Chris Cox verscheen in The Free State, Freedom In Peril en The Rifleman, alsook op NRA.org en NRAILA.org.
Meer teksten van deze auteur op www.ila.org.
The ugly truth about the default posture of government in disaster is this. When chaos reigns, tyranny rules! In the aftermath of Katrina, and for the first time in American history, New Orleans and other government officials ordered law enforcement officers to go door to door to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens at gunpoint. When there were no police or 911 or lights or phones, when armed gangs roamed the streets and gunshots rang out in the moonless sky, when thousands of lawful Americans were reduced to the final and purest form of self-reliance in the face of terrifying anarchy, their very means of self-reliance was taken away.
Katrina became the proving ground for what American gun owners have always predicted. The day came when government bureaucrats threw the Bill of Rights out the window and declared freedom to be whatever they say it is. A mayor and a police chief revoked the civil rights of law-abiding citizens. The Second Amendment was only as good as they said it was. And they had plenty of men in helmets and body armor with M-16s to prove it. No one really knows how many hundreds or thousands of guns were confiscated. In fact, it took six months and an NRA lawsuit in federal court before the city admitted they took any guns at all. Many are lost. Few are likely to make it back to their rightful owners. In the overwhelming wake of Katrina, local bureaucrats, with no conceivable authority to do so, revoked the Second Amendment. They suffered no consequences. And American media remained silently complicit.
Who, if not NRA and the Institute for Legislative Action, will rise to tell this terrible story and prevent its future occurrence?
NRA immediately launched a twopart initiative. The NRA asked every mayor and police chief in America to sign a pledge that they will never forcibly disarm the law-abiding citizens of their town or city. Mayors and police chiefs have already sworn to support the U.S. Constitution in their oaths of office. So signing this pledge should be just as effortless. And their constituents will find out whose side their local leaders are on. If they refuse to make the pledge, they should explain under exactly what circumstances their citizens should agree to be forcibly disarmed.
The NRA will support the introduction of state and federal legislation that makes it a crime to forcibly disarm law-abiding citizens. Violation should result in arrest and hard prison time. This legislation protects not only lawful gun owners, but also rank-and-file police and military officers who should not be ordered to do what they know is wrong. They don’t want "leaders" to use them as instruments of tyranny to disarm their fellow townsmen. In the minds of those who framed our Constitution, the right to armed selfprotection in times of pandemonium was so obvious and innate that it didn’t warrant mention. That’s why the Second Amendment is brief in language but broad in scope, serving as umbrella protection for lawful use of arms in almost any circumstance. We can’t know from whence the next calamity will come, only that it will come. And only the NRA stands sentry for gun rights when it arrives. If we do not heed the lesson of Katrina - that survival in disaster is ultimately the responsibility of the individual - the next tragedy will certainly include further devastation of American freedoms.
Deze tribune van Chris Cox verscheen in The Free State, Freedom In Peril en The Rifleman, alsook op NRA.org en NRAILA.org.
Meer teksten van deze auteur op www.ila.org.
2 Reacties:
- At 16:14 Anoniem said...
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Ja, rare situatie in de VS. Enerzijds ben ik zelf geen voorstander van vrij wapenbezit. Maar ik vind dan weer wel dat eens dat recht erkend werd, zulke confiscaties uit den boze zijn.
Ofwel kiest men op voorhand voor een streng wapenbeleid waarbij men zo weinig mogelijk wapens in burgerhanden houdt, en dan zijn zo'n confiscaties niet nodig. Ofwel kiest men voor vrij wapenbezit en is dat ook absoluut.
Wat er na Katrina in de VS gebeurde was noch vis noch vlees. Men erkende enerzijds het recht op vrij wapenbezit, maar anderzijds confisceerde men die wapens. Dit valt niet met elkaar te rijmen.
Vanuit weliswaar een totaal verkeerd oogpunt, legt die man van de NRA op meesterlijke wijze de vinger op de wonde. - At 18:19 Anoniem said...
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Ik denk dat velen tegen wapenbezit zijn. Maar vreemd genoeg zien ze geen graten in gewapende overheden. Hoewel overheden met hun wapens al ontelbaar keer meer misdrijven hebben gepleegd dan prive personen.
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